MEXICO CITY — Could Mexican cities become Latin Amsterdams, flooded by drug users seeking penalty-free tokes and toots? That is the fear, if somewhat overstated, of some Mexican officials, especially in northern border states that serve as a mecca for underage American drinkers.

The Mexican legislature has voted quietly to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of pot, cocaine, methamphetamine and other drugs, an effort that in the past has proved highly controversial.

There has been less protest this time around, in part because there hasn’t been much publicity.

Some critics have suggested that easing the punishment on drug possession sends the wrong message at a time when President Felipe Calderon is waging a bloody war on major narcotics traffickers. The battle between law enforcement and drug suspects has resulted in more than 11,000 deaths in the past 2 1/2 years.

But it was Calderon himself who proposed the decriminalization legislation.

His reasoning: It makes sense to distinguish between small-time users and big-time dealers, while retargeting major crime-fighting resources away from the former and toward the latter and their drug-lord bosses.

“The important thing is . . . that consumers are not treated as criminals,” said Rafael Ruiz Mena, secretary general of the National Institute of Penal Sciences. “It is a public health problem, not a penal problem.”

The legislation was approved at the height of a swine-flu outbreak in Mexico that dominated the public’s, and the world’s, attention.

Meeting at times behind closed doors — the better to prevent the spread of disease, officials said — the lower and upper houses of Congress passed the bill on the last days of April. It awaits Calderon’s signature.

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